Questor Insurance News

Representatives from Paris’s tourist industry are set to embark on a world tour next month in an attempt to allay any concerns surrounding the safety of the French capital in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.

The tour – which aims to reassure both tourists and tour operators – comes as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advise visitors to the city to be ‘especially vigilant and follow the security advice issued by the French authorities’.

Explaining the tour in further detail, Francois Navarro, Managing Director of the Comite Regional du Tourisme Paris Ile-de-France, a body financed by the regional government, said:

“We're going to the UK at the end of February, to Los Angeles in March, Italy, Spain and Germany in April, Hong Kong in May and Tokyo in June.

“Given the importance of this event we told ourselves that this was the priority - that this was what was really needed,” he added.

The organisation has also moved to inform travel operators and embassies that the city's museums, monuments, big stores and amusement parks also have more police eyes on them, while Navarro emphasised that “at this stage, it won't take longer to travel by plane even though security has been reinforced.”

Data released by the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) last year revealed that France took the number one spot in a ranking of the world’s top tourism destinations, beating the US, Spain, China and Italy to take pole position.

Their figures showed that a staggering 84.7 million holidaymakers visited France in 2013 - a figure that has increased by 2% in a year-on-year comparison.

Figures also show that Paris alone attracted 47 million visitors in 2014, around half of which were overseas visitors.

If you are heading off on holiday to sample the delights of the continent in 2015 it is important to organise European travel insurance in advance.